Contrary to what you might think, this video isn’t about hippies with flowers in their hair, but rather a different type of flower power in the form of Bach flower therapy, explained to us here by microfinance marketing professor Maria Lopez-Escorial. Prof. Lopez-Escorial is committed to making this world a better place. In order to achieve this…

When the IE Brown Executive MBA March 2012 intake began we interviewed a few of the participants to understand why they chose the program and what they expected to get out of the experience. Gregorie Perez, Executive Director at Gifts and Graces in Manila, was one of the participants we interviewed (see the original interview here). …

One of my all-time favorite films is The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover by Peter Greenaway. It’s a great story and the cinematography is excellent. I would’ve loved to have been able to render my own small homage to this film, but unfortunately there are no thieves I can think of around here…

Tyba, a project from IE University BBA program, wins the Public Vote Award of this year The Next Web Europe Conference. Tyba, created by Eiso Kant (22), Jorge Schnura (22) and Philip Von Have (24), all final-year students of IE University’s Bachelor in Business Administration, is an online recruitment tool that permits students and recent graduates…

Some weeks back the April 2013 intake of the International MBA started. Basil Alrayes from Saudi Arabia talks about his first impressions and especially his experiences during the LAUNCH week. Last week I participated in the LAUNCH program, which consisted of a week full of activities designed to prepare the students for the upcoming year.…

The tide is turning. After twenty years of delocation fever among Spanish firms, some of them are now bringing their manufacturing back to Spain. It is a particularly good option for SMEs. After twenty years of delocation fever it would appear that the trend is now reversing, as some companies start to bring their production plants back home, while many more are considering it.

Labour costs have risen in China. The increase in the price of a barrel of oil has impacted the cost of logistics, and some of the hidden costs, such as expatriation, were not calculated properly. Distance has constrained flexibility. Some companies have lost control over their know-how. Quality is uneven. Although manufacturing in Asia (or other places) seemed like such an interesting option only a few years ago, this often turned out not to be the case. According to Fedecon 15% of delocated textil companies have returned to Spain or to countries nearby, and we already have examples in the toy sector, such as Juguettos and Injusa. These are two sectors in which it was supposed that production costs were everything.

Labor costs are going down in Spain resulting in an improvement in levels of competitiveness in the international market. Bringing production back to Spain is now a real option which would improve quality, response time, and enable greater control over processes, all this at a very similar cost. Coming back seems to be a simple choice, given that in the majority of cases, and particularly in the case of SMEs, the companies in question did not make enormous investments in production plants, preferring to subcontract production, to the detriment of local plants. Nevertheless it is entirely possible that those businesses that decided to delocate at the time have lost all or part of their know-how and may even have closed down their factories, making it very expensive for them to return to Spain.

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